This is a CU Colorado Springs student blog for the following courses: Intermediate Microeconomics and Austrian Economics.

November 4, 2014

Health Care Interventionism

We have all been well aware of the direction that healthcare
in America has been moving for quite some time, of the increasing control that
the government has seized. But a large step toward total government control was
taken with the introduction of ObamaCare and the Accountable Care Organization
under the Affordable Care Act. They promised affordable healthcare for millions
of Americans, particularly those that could not afford it before; they promised
that this would change the face of American healthcare for the better,
providing better care across the board. But this is not what we have seen. (2)

Since it’s enactment, ObamaCare has seen a terribly small
increase in the number of those with health insurance (3%) in the face of
higher premiums, loss of preferred doctors and health care providers, as well
as a stifling effect on employment and an hourly cap that is just below “full
time”, which lets employers off the hook for other benefits. (1) Not insignificantly,
several major healthcare providers, have refused to pioneer this turn of
events, Mayo Clinic going on to say that the programs “are still too complex in
their structure and requirements. They are excessively detailed and restrictive
in ways that have significantly limited the number of interested groups”. Truer words. The
unintended consequences of government control have begun to creep out into the
open. (2)

Mises has discussed at length in Economic Policy the effects of price control, and how, more often than
anyone wishes to notice or admit, the most severe consequences fall upon those
that this government control was intending to assist. Milk, bread, farmers, and feed. The path to socialism is
paved with good intentions? Also, he discussed the vicious cycle that is born
from just this type of government interventionism. A cycle that can be broken through only the kind of disruption to the system that war causes. California’s Proposition 45
as well as North Dakota’s Measure 17, are both attempting to mitigate the
damage already done through even more strident control of the system. (3) I
cannot hope that this will be the end, and that the Federal Government will
back down from this position of increased intervention, that this will not be
an opening door into a cycle that could catapult our country into a dark
crevasse of government healthcare.

Is it simply a proud denial, or is it ignorance that
perpetuates this course? I couldn’t pretend to know, but I believe that our economic
leaders would only benefit from the realization of their own fallacious nature,
and of their inadequacy in regards to controlling the delicate healthcare
system of our nation, not to mention the far more complex overarching economy itself. Hayek, too, voiced concerns of this nature throughout his life. Words that, if heeded, could have resulted in a much different worldwide economic reality today.